A microgravity experiment created by West Fargo students will head to the International Space Station next fall.

The mini-lab experiment will orbit space aboard Mission 8 of the Student Spaceflight Experiments Program launched in 2010 by the National Center for Earth and Space Science Education.

This past fall, 250 West Fargo students came up with about 25 ideas for experiments that could be done in a microgravity environment, said Eric Dobervich, a seventh-grade teacher at Liberty Middle School.

The project involved Liberty seventh- and eighth-graders, ninth-graders from Sheyenne High School who mentored fifth-grade students from Westside Elementary School, Dobervich said.

Volunteer judges from Moore Engineering, West Fargo; Appareo Systems, Fargo; and North Dakota State University selected three projects for submission to SSEP.

One experiment studies whether titanium rusts differently in a microgravity environment, said Dobervich. “They chose that because part of the space station is made of a specific type of titanium.”

Another test shows whether a simple lemon battery created in space functions differently by studying how electrons travel through an electrolyte in microgravity.

The third studies whether certain types of bacteria can break down oil in a microgravity environment.

An SSEP review board will select one of West Fargo’s three experiments at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C.